From the Washington Times:John Kerry is flirting with catastrophe by considering — it’s not clear how seriously — a bizarre scheme to delay his acceptance of the Democratic nomination in order to squeeze through a loophole in campaign-finance law to enable him to collect millions of dollars of public swag. To do this, he would first flip, by making a speech accepting the nomination but not really accepting it and later calling the delegates back to Boston, or to Chicago or some other place to execute the flop. He has wide and long experience executing such flip-flops. Or he might accept the nomination from the Democratic National Committee, whose members could meet anywhere, or even by telephone. There’s no precedent for any of this, so the convention assembled, which is after all the final arbiter of its rules and whether to suspend them, can do as it pleases.
Wes Pruden thinks that playing this game to collect more money not only makes Kerry look stupid – it does – but also runs the risk of a brokered convention that would nominate Hillary Clinton. That’s possible, but unlikely, I think, as most serious political observers don’t really think Kerry can win, and Ms Rodham-Clinton has no interest in playing a loser’s hand. The only thing that could upset her apple cart is were Kerry to win, and every time the man does anything, he makes that look less and less likely.
Now he’s in the process of sabotaging his convention bounce in favor of more ads that won’t work anyhow. With the problems that Bush has created for himself, Kerry should be killing him in the polls; the fact that he isn’t demonstrates what a horrible candidate he is. This reminds me more and more of the Dole nomination, when a vulnerable president was saved by the nomination of an incompetent foe.